


a little bit of chaos

by desdemona (LydiaOfNarnia)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Shiratorizawa, genfic with a major shade of ushiten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7231723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaOfNarnia/pseuds/desdemona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tendou doesn't like boring things. Ushijima is a bit of an enabler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a little bit of chaos

**Author's Note:**

> because the bOYS ARE BACK  
> THE BOYS ARE BACK
> 
> when i read the newest chapter i screamed

Sometimes, Ushijima thought, even bothering to say “no,” just wasn't worth it.

He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, an impassive expression resting on his ordinarily neutral face. Before him, Tendou bustled around the art room’s supply closet in a frenzy of activity, snatching things off the shelves in what seemed like a totally haphazard manner, and calling out his selections as he went. For someone who was supposed to be undercover, you would expect that he would exercise a bit more caution; but no, he didn’t seem to care whether or not the entire school heard him. Loudness, Ushijima had already decided, was a trait Tendou had been born with, and one he could never grow past.

“I’m pretty sure this is unnecessary,” he remarked, trying not to sound as interested as he actually was. “We are only wasting time that could be spent training.”

“You spend _most_ of your time training,” Tendou replied disinterestedly, before victoriously seizing on a rubber chicken stashed away at the back of a crowded shelf. “Rooster!”

“It’s a chicken,” Ushijima corrected automatically, but Tendou was already on the move again. He deliberated for half a second on a jar of glitter before snatching it as well, accidentally scattering some sparkly residue in his wake.

“Ahhh _hhh_ ,” he muttered, struggling to balance the unsealed jar on top of the already sizeable mountain of stuff balanced in his arms. “Wakatoshi, could you close that up for me?”

Ushijima did more than that. He tightened the lid on the jar before taking on half of Tendou’s assorted burdens, gathering them up in his strong arms with as much ease as if he were holding an armful of volleyballs. His face now visible again from beneath the pile of junk, Tendou grinned.

“You’re like an avenging, muscular angel!” he chirped, and Ushijima blinked back at him as Tendou snagged one last thing off of the shelves -- a paint brush. Now they were ready to go.

“This is chaotic,” Ushijima observed, his eyes scanning the assortment of odds and ends gathered in both their arms. If he’d expected his blunt observation to faze Tendou, he was wrong - because Tendou was Tendou, and even when he didn’t have a plan, he always did. The redhead arched an eyebrow, and Ushijima knew enough to realize that the glint in his eye spelled no good things to come.

“What’s wrong with a little chaos?”

* * *

What _exactly_ was wrong with a little chaos was that there had been absolutely nothing wrong with the Shiratorizawa banner in the first place. Ushijima had actually liked it a lot; his school had used the same banner to cheer on their volleyball team for years. The bright colors of purple and white had become something he was accustomed to seeing in the stands, and the familiarity of the banner always secured him in the knowledge that victory was only the natural course for their school, for him.

But seeing the same banner game after game for the past three years apparently hadn’t been enough for Tendou, whose natural unpredictability always had his mind racing down tracks where Ushijima struggled to follow.

“It’s boring!” he had exclaimed over lunch one day, flicking his chopsticks in emphasis and accidently spattering some sauce on Eita’s face. Glowering, the fair-haired boy brushed it off, elbowing Reon when he dared to chuckle beside him.

“It’s the same one we’ve used for years,” Eita shot back, disagreeing apparently just to spite Tendou. “There’s no reason to change it.”

“Uhh, yeah, there is. If a volleyball team doesn’t have a new trick up their sleeve whenever they face down a team for the second time, all that’s going to happen is that they’ll be predictable, and they’ll _lose_.”

“Sheer power is always stronger than unpredictability. Also, banners are not a contest,” Ushijima pointed out aptly. “There are no winners or losers.”

“Back me up here, Wakatoshi! What I’m trying to say is, if we keep using the same boring banner over and over, people are going to think _we’re_ boring.”

“Does it matter? We win.”

“Yes, it _matters_.” Tendou leaned in, very close to Ushijima’s face; he was doing that thing again where he used proximity to unnerve people. Ushijima was so used to Tendou invading his personal space at this point that he was hardly even fazed. “As the winners, we need to have a fantastic looking banner to show just how cool we are!”

His eyes scanned around the table, searching for an ally; Eita was disinterestedly nibbling his roll as he met Tendou’s gaze head-on, Yamagata was staring out the window, and Reon only shrugged.

“You guys suck,” Tendou announced, and no one particularly seemed to care.

How Ushijima had gotten roped into this great heist -- not only stealing supplies from the art room, but also stealing the very banner that had represented the Shiratorizawa volleyball team for almost a decade -- he really wasn’t sure. It was definitely something he was going to regret when they inevitably got caught; but then again, Tendou had always had an odd way of being able to nudge him out of his comfort zone that Ushijima had never quite understood.

And that, roughly, was how Ushijima wound up standing next to a very messy Tendou as they both stared up in awe at the catastrophe which used to be the Shiratorizawa Volleyball Team banner.

The school’s name had not only been glitterified, but outlined and smattered with so much paint as to make it all but illegible. Tendou had tried to glue stars to the fabric, but the glue hadn’t held and most of them now dangled off halfway. The paint had spilled in one corner, smearing the purple fabric green, and in other places it had been spattered with a chaotic rainbow of dripping paint and excess glitter. Overall, it looked more like an interpretive art piece than a sports banner, and definitely didn’t look like it had anything to do with Shiratorizawa High School.

“You’ve ruined it,” stated Ushijima.

Next to him, Tendou made a sound that was caught somewhere between a high-pitched whine and a desperate laugh.

“Wa-ka- _to_ -shiiii,” he drawled, not tearing his eyes from the banner for a second. “It isn't ruined. How could you call this ruined? This is art.”

“You've ruined art.”

Tendou rounded on him then, finally. His golden eyes were even larger than usual, only standing out more against the splotches of paint smattering his pale skin. Tendou wore freckles well, Ushijima though, even if they were all the colors of the rainbow. What he didn't wear as well was all the glitter that had somehow found its way into his hair, or the paint which now dyed Tendou’s already unusual red spikes a mess of disarming white and green.

“It's _art_ ,” Tendou said again, sharply. Ushijima blinked at him. “You can't criticize art, Wakatoshi, you can't. It's beautiful.”

Their old banner had been beautiful; the new one, essentially, looked as if the art supply closet had thrown up on it. For all of Tendou’s effort, this may as well have been what happened.

Still, there was something vaguely desperate and beseeching in Tendou’s eyes, so Ushijima decided to humor him. “It… may be beautiful, to some people, yes. I don't think we personally know anyone to whom it would be beautiful, but I agree that there is probably someone out there who would find your art fantastic.”

He’d given it his best effort; but judging by the way Tendou collapsed against the wall with a loud groan, clutching his head with paint-crusted hands, Ushijima would guess his encouragement fell flat.

His mouth quirked down in a frown; turning, he regarded Tendou’s masterpiece with a look one might give a particularly large, quite dead bug who's just fallen out of the sky to land on the sidewalk right in front of you. The idea that it might be salvageable crossed his mind for approximately a second before he realized, _no, it definitely wasn't._

“We… could make a new banner,” he suggested, only because he literally saw no other option at that point.

Tendou lifted his head, eyes gradually growing wider the longer they lingered on Wakatoshi; he really shouldn't have looked as happy as he did. Tendou looked like a man watching his ride home finally show up after an hour of waiting, and coincidentally running over his worst enemy as it pulled up in front of him.

Ushijima just felt disappointed. He really had liked that banner.

* * *

“Help me out here, Wakatoshi,” Tendou urged loudly, brandishing the dripping paint brush in front of him like a lethal weapon. From where he'd been very patiently sitting, rearranging paint cans and staying out of the way, Ushijima lifted his head.

“What do you need?”

“Background. I need you to draw the sun, some trees, maybe a few horses. You can do that, right?”

At the way Tendou’s gaze was fixed on him, half-distracted but clearly not expecting to be argued with, Ushijima felt something inside him cringe. “I… probably should not do that.”

“And I probably shouldn't have locked myself in the wine cabinet when I was three, but that didn't stop me.” Tendou sounded vaguely irritated.

“Someone should have. That would have been a really, really good idea. Just like not allowing me to do anything artistic, at all. That is also an excellent idea.”

Tendou’s eyebrow quirked as he turned to face the other boy, lips curving up into something halfway between a smirk and a sneer. It was the same look Wakatoshi had seen him give opponents on the other side of the net before, and somehow having it trained on him made it twice as unnerving. He had never found Tendou intimidating before, really. Obnoxious, yes; loud, yes; confusing, certainly; but never intimidating.

But in the empty hallway, covered in numerous shades of dried paint, towering over him with eyes glowing gold in the shadow of faint daylight, it dawned on Ushijima that when he wanted to, Tendou could be quite scary indeed.

“Wakato _shi_ ,” Tendou intoned, voice chilled.

Wordlessly, Ushijima reached over and picked up a paintbrush.

* * *

“It… looks… wow. Um.”

“It looks bad.”

“ _Yeah_ , there's the word I was looking for. Who let you draw?”

Ushijima made a dejected noise, slumping against the wall like am offended child. Arms crossed, Semi tilted his head in a birdlike manner before turning back to Tendou.

“Are you actually stupid?”

This time it was Tendou’s turn to be dejected, though he coupled it with a catlike hiss that had both Eita and Reon taking a large step back out of the spirit of self-preservation.

It wasn't that the new banner looked… _terrible_ , per say, even though it would be hard to deny that it absolutely did. It was just that it didn't look particularly good, or even very much like a banner at all. It looked like someone had taken a long white sheet, smattered it with paint, written Shiratorizawa on it, and tried to pawn it off as a school banner. It might have been passable had it even been purple, but as far as Eita could tell there wasn't a splotch of purple on the thing.

“I did the landscape,” Wakatoshi put in helpfully from the back of the room, and Eita desperately searched for anything that might resemble a landscape in the mess.

“Oh? Uhh --- really? Wow, it looks… great…” Reon may have been foundering, but he sure was trying his hardest. “Nice job, Wakatoshi. Great work.”

Ushijima didn't smile, and he pretty much never smiled; but in that moment Eita was sure he _preened_. That was the scariest thing.

The close-up he received of Tendou’s face was a close second when the redhead suddenly flung an arm around his shoulders, gripping him tight and in a way that definitely suggested that he would not be let go until he agreed. “That's exactly why we need you, Eita-kun!”

“Why do you need me.”

“Because you're going to be the hero and save us all from sure destruction and doom.”

“Why.”

“Because…” A hint of uncertainty crept into Tendou’s expression. “Deep down inside you really are a wonderful person?”

“I'm not helping you,” Semi stated bluntly, shoving Tendou away from him. The redhead made a small, alarmed squeak, and Ushijima grunted from somewhere in the background. Eita’s eyes flickered between the mess of a poster to Reon, standing against the wall and looking very uncomfortable with this whole scenario. He wondered if they would be allowed to leave if they asked nicely, or if he and Reon would just have to book it and hope Ushijima couldn't catch them.

“To be fair, we had nothing to do with this,” Reon reasoned. “Why get us involved?”

To Eita, it was more than obvious why. In fact, it was probably obvious to everyone, but that didn't stop Tendou from saying it anyway. “We, umm… we're not exactly good at fixing things, apparently?”

“But we can break things very well.”

“Atta boy, Wakatoshi, hit the nail right on the head. So, that's kind of why we came to you…” He trailed off, blinking at Eita and Reon with wide, way-too-hopeful eyes and a smile he probably thought was sweet, but was just really scary.

Eita raised an eyebrow. He glanced between a frighteningly-hopeful Tendou, a stoically-hopeful Ushijima, and Reon (who still looked like he had no clue what to do). Then he looked at the poster. Whatever the boys had been trying to do before… really wasn't salvageable, but Semi Eita had nothing is he didn't have quick improvisational skills and hands that could set a ball, kill a person in twenty-six different ways, and make art out of anything.

He turned back to Tendou again, mouth set in a stern line. “Beg.”

The redhead blinked. “Ehh?”

“Beg,” Eita repeated. “Down on your knees. I'm not joking.”

Promptly, Tendou dropped to his knees like his feet had turned to jelly; after a couple of meaningful glances and a well-aimed kick, Ushijima followed.

“Convince me.”

“If you don't help us we’re probably going to get expelled, and Coach will kill us, and our names will be thrown into disgrace at Shiratorizawa forever, and we’ll never get into the professional volleyball circuit and wind up having to sell bottle caps on the street to live --”

If Eita hadn't had a full blown headache already, he had one now. Teeth baring in the manner of a very angry wolf, he snapped, “No! Don't _reason_ with me! Flatter me!”

“Oh,” Tendou said bluntly, before a blank look passed over his face. It appeared that when tasked with the monumental effort of actually being nice, his natural verbal filter (that he never employed, ever) finally activated. This, of all things, had rendered Tendou speechless.

It was Ushijima who saved the day. “We call upon your superior artistic skill and infinite patience to fix the banner where we failed,” he dictated, head bowed low. Eita heard Reon snicker beside him, and he caught the other boy’s eye with a smirk.

The praise was good enough, and Eita figured it was as much as he was going to get. Squaring his shoulders, the blond clapped his hands.

“Alright,” he announced. “Let's do this.”

* * *

After moving up to nationals following a close win against Aoba Johsai in the Interhigh tournament, the eyes of Japan were all trained on Shiratorizawa. The news reels buzzed about their powerhouse spiker, their crushing blocks, and indomitable receives.

The embittered eyes of one Oikawa Tooru, however, were fixed on something else entirely.

“Move away from the television, dumbass, you're going to kill your eyes.” Seizing him by the shoulders, Iwaizumi guided Oikawa back from the TV. The setter’s eyes were locked in an unnervingly intense stare, right into the heart of the image of the crowds the Shiratorizawa team had gathered to support them.

“Look at it, Iwa-chan! _Look at it!_ Where did they get a new banner from, huh? Who painted it? How old is _ours_?”

If he was being honest, Iwaizumi didn't see anything special about the new banner proudly bearing Shiratorizawa’s name. Sure, it was nice -- it was big, purple, and practically clubbed you over the head with the school's name in bold black lettering. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it were the decals on the sides -- intricate gold, painted and glossed over with some sort of glitter. It should have looked tacky (it _did,_ Oikawa insisted to himself, but he knew he was lying); yet the Shiratorizawa banner hit just the right note between majestic and subtle.

“Where can we get a banner like that?” Oikawa crowed at the TV, words devolving into a hiss as he made a beeline towards the screen once more. On his hands and knees, he looked like a panther going in for the kill -- if that panther had all the grace of a baby just learning to crawl and was being restrained by a very tired wing spiker.

“Come on,” Iwaizumi droned, seizing Oikawa by the waist and half-lifting him off the ground as he dragged him away. “It's time for your nap.”

“Iwa-chan -- I don't _want_ to nap, I want a new _banner_ \-- _IWA-CHAN!”_

* * *

And somewhere at nationals, Ushijima Wakatoshi hit a spike with enough power to take the head off a small child, and smiled to himself.


End file.
